UConn wins March Madness with 76-59 smothering of SDSU
Sports
UConn’s lanky star forward, Adama Sanogo, won Most Outstanding Player honors
HOUSTON (AP) — After six games and 240 minutes of pure dominance that ran through March, then part of April, it finally became clear there was only one thing that could stop the UConn Huskies.
The team from Storrs, Connecticut, topped off one of the most impressive March Madness runs in history Monday night, clamping down early, then breaking things open late to bring home its fifth national title with a 76-59 victory over San Diego State.
“We knew we were the best team in the tournament going in, and we just had to play to our level,” said Dan Hurley, who joined Jim Calhoun and Kevin Ollie as the third coach to lead UConn to a title.
UConn’s lanky star forward, Adama Sanogo, won Most Outstanding Player honors, finishing with 17 points and 10 rebounds in the final. Tristen Newton also had a double-double with 19 points and 10 boards.
The Huskies (31-8) became the fifth team since the bracket expanded in 1985 to win all six NCAA Tournament games by double-digits on the way to a championship. They won those six games by an average of an even 20 points, only a fraction less than what North Carolina did in sweeping to the title in 2009.
UConn built a 16-point lead late in the first half, only to see the Aztecs (32-7) trim it to five with 5:19 left. But Jordan Hawkins (16 points), — whose cousin, Angel Reese, won MOP honors the night before to help LSU take the women’s title — answered with a 3 to trigger a 9-0 run.
“It’s absolutely amazing that we both get this opportunity,” Hawkins said. “The family reunion is going to be crazy.”Keshad Johnson scored 14 points for San Diego State, which came up one win shy in this, its first trip to the Final Four. Darrion Trammell and Lamont Butler, he of buzzer-beater fame in the semifinal against Florida Atlantic, had 13 apiece.
San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher was an assistant with Michigan back in the Fab Five days, when the Wolverines lost in the final two years in a row. One of the Fab Five, current Wolverines coach Juwan Howard, was there to console his former coach.
“We had to be at our best. We weren’t at our best,” Dutcher said. “A lot had to do with UConn.”
UConn, the favorite and best-seeded team at No. 4 for this Final Four full of underdogs, set the stage for this win over an 11:07 stretch in the first half during which the Aztecs didn’t make a basket. Unable to shoot over or go around this tall, long UConn team, they missed 14 straight shots from the floor.
